Contents

Lore

Biography

3rd bio

2nd bio

1st bio

Born to one of the most respected noble families of Noxus, Katarina Du Couteau found herself elevated above others from an early age. While her younger sister Cassiopeia took after their politically brilliant mother, Katarina was very much her father’s daughter, and the wily General Du Couteau pushed her to learn the way of the blade; to cut away the empire’s enemies not with reckless brutality, but deadly precision. He was a harsh teacher with many pupils, and notoriously difficult to impress.

So it was that Katarina’s childhood—if it can be called such—had little room for kindness or rest. She spent every waking moment honing herself into the ultimate weapon, testing her endurance, her dexterity, her tolerance for pain. She stole poisons from the city’s least reputable apothecaries, testing their efficacy in tiny increments upon herself, gradually building her resistance even as she catalogued their effects. She scaled the tallest towers in the dead of night, unseen by anyone.

She yearned to do her part for Noxus. She yearned for the opportunity to demonstrate her hidden strengths in service of the empire, and the throne.

Her first mark came straight from her father, camped with his warbands on the eve of one of the military’s innumerable westward invasions… She was to assassinate a line officer of the opposing army, a low-born wretch by the name of Demetrius.

Katarina was livid. She hadn’t trained her entire life to have her talents wasted on some dungheel barely skilled enough to swing a sword! He simply wouldn’t do. Instead of her assigned target, Katarina stole into the enemy camp and slit the enemy commander’s throat as he slept. It was a flawless execution. It would bring a swift victory, and glory to Noxus. It would make her father proud.

At dawn, his face daubed with ashes, the vengeful hero Demetrius led a berzerk charge into her father’s encampment. Dozens of Noxian soldiers were slaughtered, along with the general’s personal retinue. Katarina’s father himself barely escaped with his life.

He was furious beyond words, refusing even to look his daughter in the eye. She had shamed him, and their family name. The greatest assassins do not seek recognition or glory, he reminded her. They do not expect to occupy a place of honor at their master’s right hand.

Overwhelmed, Katarina struck out into the wilderness, alone. She would complete her original mission. Demetrius would pay with his life. Even so, her mind swam. Could she ever forgive herself? How had she been so foolish?

She was so distracted, she didn’t see her attacker until he had nearly taken her eye out.

For Katarina’s failure, General Du Couteau had sent another of his protégés after her; a nameless whelp dragged up from one of the lesser assassins’ guilds. But even with blood streaming down her face, the years of rigorous training kicked in, and her blades were in her hands in an instant.

Six hours later, she tossed Demetrius’s severed head at her father’s feet.

She told the general she had considered taking his head instead, but eventually decided—as much as she hated to admit it—that he had done the right thing in ordering her death. She had failed. Not just as an assassin, or as a daughter, but as a Noxian.

And failure must have its consequences. She ran her fingers along the raw, deep gash over her left eye, and thought of the price others had paid for her arrogance.

She knew she had lost her father’s favor, and could never regain it. He would raise others in her place, simply to spite her. Still, she vowed to redeem herself, no matter the cost—to rededicate her talents to the empire, and to become the sinister weapon she always intended to be.

"Never question my loyalty. You will never know what I endure for it."

Driven by an intense killer instinct, Katarina uses her talents as an assassin for the glory of Noxus, and the continued elevation of her family. While her fervor drives her to ever-greater feats, it can sometimes lead her astray.

From childhood, Katarina displayed a natural gift for combat. As the daughter of a prominent Noxian general many paths were open to her, but she rejected them all for the path of the blade. Rigorously trained by the finest assassins in Noxus, her father the best among them, it was not long before Katarina demanded her first assignment. The task they gave her was aggravatingly simple: assassinate a low-ranking Demacian officer. As she set to her work infiltrating the enemy camp, Katarina discovered an opportunity too tantalizing to pass by - the arrival of a Demacian General. Stalking him to his tent, she quietly dispatched his guards and slit his throat. Pleased with her impressive kill, she disappeared into the night. Katarina's elation faded the next day when her original objective, the Demacian officer, led his forces to ambush unprepared Noxian soldiers. Though the Noxians fought valiantly, they suffered heavy casualties. Furious at her mistake, Katarina set off to complete her original task. Returning to the camp, she spied her now heavily guarded target and realized a stealthy kill was no longer possible. Drawing her blades, Katarina swore the officer would die, no matter the cost. She leapt into battle, unleashing a whirlwind of steel. One by one blades flashed and guards fell, each strike bringing her one step closer to the officer. A final thrown dagger restored her honor. Bloody and bruised, Katarina barely escaped the Demacian forces, and returned to Noxus a changed woman. The scar she earned that night now serves as a constant reminder that she must never let passion interfere with duty.

"Never question my loyalty. You will never know what I endure for it."

Born to Noxian privilege, Katarina trained in the ways of the knife from the time she was a child. Now that fiery, willful child has grown into a beautiful and deadly woman. Katarina's intense passion for life is tempered by a sense of duty and loyalty to her family. That same passion proves a double-edged sword when her heart and her responsibilities are at odds.

As the free-spirited daughter of a prominent Noxian general, the young Katarina was given the best of everything. Naturally gifted in combat, she found herself drawn to blades. Much to her family's pride, she trained under the deadliest assassins in the Noxian military. It wasn't long before Katarina's instructors deemed her worthy of a trial by fire – to kill a prominent Demacian soldier. Creeping through the darkened military camp, Katarina was overwhelmed by her passion to prove herself. When the army's General strayed across her path, unguarded, she quietly slit his throat. Katarina disappeared into the night, pleased with her impressive kill. Her elation was soon crushed, as the next day her original target – the prominent soldier who was the true military genius – led his forces to ambush unprepared Noxian soldiers. Katarina flung herself into the fray to correct her mistake, earning a scar over her left eye as a permanent reminder. Even though she finally completed her task, her family's reputation was damaged. Since that day, Katarina vowed to never let passion prevent her from bringing glory to both Noxus and her family. Reconciling her desires with her duty proves to be a constant challenge. To the world, Katarina is a symbol of Noxian patriotism, though there is more to the red-haired assassin than meets the eye.

"Never question my loyalty. You will never know what I endure for it."

As a militaristic state, it would perhaps come as no surprise that the primary responsibilities of Noxian women are raising strong children and providing succor for husbands who walk the path of soldiery. There are some, however, for whom nurture is not nature, and Katarina is just such a creature. Born the daughter of the feared Noxian General Du Couteau, the girl was always more interested in her father's knives than in the dresses, jewelry, and other trifles that her sister spent so much time fussing over. A childhood dispute soon unveiled her uncanny knack for bloodshed, and her father, ever the opportunist, happily fostered her killer instincts. After training under the tutelage of the finest assassins the mighty city-state had to offer, Katarina first cut her teeth performing assassinations in the Ionian War. There, her ruthless mastery of the knife and dagger combined with her sadistic temperament to earn her the title Sinister Blade, a moniker that would follow her for the remainder of her career. She is most famous, however, for her exploits in the campaigns against Demacia, especially those surrounding her engagements with the nation's champion, Garen; a rivalry which began when she recovered the remains of Sion from a vanguard under his protection.

With the demand for warfare somewhat arrested by the tenuous peace settling over Valoran, Katarina sought the allure of violence in its last remaining haven: The League of Legends. Some might say it was an inevitability that Katarina's chosen path would draw her to become a champion of the League, continuing to enforce the will of Noxus and bring prestige of war to her noble family. There, she continues to perform her bloody work - esteemed and reviled, feared and adored.

"The Sinister Blade of Noxus is like a black widow - beautiful, but deadly."

At the moment it's somewhat difficult to punish Katarina in the early game thanks to Shunpo’s low cooldown, even when she isn’t taking advantage of the partial reset from jumping to daggers. Increasing Shunpo’s downtime opens up more opportunities to catch Katarina out, particularly if you can force her to Shunpo back to a less-than-ideal target.

Terrorizing high level play (and the Jin Air Green Wings), to say that Katarina’s flashy update packs a punch would be an understatement. A large part of Kat’s oppressive power comes from her early all-in strength: she’s able to land multiple abilities on opponents before they have access to most of their tools. When looking at where we could even the playing field, Shunpo felt like the obvious choice for having the least actual gameplay when used solely for its damage. Katarina’s lethal takedowns should reward anticipation, execution, and dagger tossing; repeatedly clicking on your opponent in the early-game no longer carries as much weight toward that end.

In most reasonable matches, Kat hits this wall before her ability power scaling takes off, making it hard to keep pace with enemies. We’re giving her a little help while she fills out her inventory.

Passive - Voracity

WTF NUMBERS : Daggers deal slightly more damage at all levels, scaling faster early but more slowly later (damage at levels 1 and 18 are roughly unchanged). The damage difference peaks at level 10 (+10 damage).

Kat’s truly the embodiment of the phrase ‘feast or famine’; crushing entire fights in a second of button mashing, or throwing limp daggers in a poor attempt to contribute from behind. This has led to a pretty tight leash for Kat’s balance - while you can succeed on her, we’ve had to fine tune every part of her laning to ensure she can’t reliably hit her penta-killing critical mass every game.

This update seeks to remove Kat’s harsh restrictions while also delivering on her lightning-speed high-skill fantasy. Armed with her new Dagger mechanic, Kat’s got the flexibility to orchestrate flashy fights (or smooth getaways) in a way that both she and her opponents can engage with. This lets us ease up on a lot of the base-stat restrictions needed to artificially keep her down, given that Katarina’s opponents always have a clue as to when and how she might move in for the kill.

As a result of the changes, it’s important to talk about one key line below: Katarina can no longer target wards with Shunpo. It’s not a decision that was taken lightly, but a large part of Kat’s update is centered around telegraphing her potential mobility to assailants. Ward-hopping breaks this at a fundamental level - giving her far too many easy outs in tense situations. Kat’s all about finding the right mix of premeditation and reaction in her playmaking, so you’ll have to think on your feet and use all of your tools to survive.

General

BASE HEALTH :[510]⇒ 590

HEALTH GROWTH STAT :[83]⇒ 82

BASE HEALTH REGEN :[4.5]⇒ 7.5

HEALTH REGEN GROWTH STAT :[0.55]⇒ 0.7

BASE ARMOR :[27]⇒ 28

BASE MAGIC RESIST :[32]⇒ 34

BASE MOVEMENT SPEED :[345]⇒ 340

Q - Bouncing BladesKatarina throws a dagger, dealing damage to her target and nearby enemies. Then, the dagger ricochets onto the ground behind her initial target . If Katarina picks up a dagger, she uses it to slash through all nearby enemies.

COOLDOWN :[10/9.5/9/8.5/8 seconds]⇒ 11/10/9/8/7 seconds

DAMAGE :[60/85/110/135/160]⇒ 75/105/135/165/195

RATIO :[0.45 ability power]⇒ 0.3 ability power

RANGE :[675]⇒ 625

TARGETS HIT :[4]⇒ 3

DAGGERS Picking up a dagger causes Katarina to slash all enemies around her in a small area

WIDE BERTH Shunpo now targets an area around Katarina’s target, and strikes the nearest enemy if cast on an ally or dagger

ON A KNIFE’S EDGE In addition to allied and enemy units, Katarina can target daggers with Shunpo. Targeting a dagger with Shunpo or walking over it refunds 78/84/90/96% (at levels 1-16) of Shunpo’s total cooldown

We know Katarina buffs make everyone worried, but the Sinister Blade's felt pretty dull compared to her assassin peers for the better part of a season. Kat's success cases are defined by her ability to roam, but the arms-race of waveclear she's up against in midlane makes it hard to find the right moments. We're upping Kat's agency when it comes to creating favorable situations - whether through shoving to set up a sneaky side-lane gank, or just killing her opponent outright

"We'll keep this one short: Katarina's Shunpo is essential to help her get around and chain multi-kills once she's Death Lotus'd up a storm, but the base and ratio were contributing far more to her midgame burst than what's intended from a flexible mobility spell. Lowering it makes her work harder and be more cautious with when to enter a fight if she wants to make it out alive."

For one of the heaviest snowball champions in league, Katarina's lane-bully potential is enabled by having the base-stats to win wars of attrition with enemy mids, whittling them down for the kill. We're pulling back on that to give her opponents a better window of vulnerability to exploit. "

General

HEALTH PER LEVEL : 80⇒ 83

BASE HEALTH : 560⇒ 510

BASE HEALTH REGEN : 7.7⇒ 4.5

v5.4Katarina now needs to deal damage to an opposing champion within 3 seconds of them dying in order to Get The Reset.

The deadliest Pentakill on two legs (and not even in the band!), Katarina's a volatile and competitive option for those looking to shut out their solo queue competition. Voracity's long duration means that nobody's ever allowed to reenter the fight with low health, as they're always at risk of setting off an avalanche of daggers and shunpos - even if Kat's across the battlefield. This change is to focus Katarina's rewards on the fights she's intimately involved in, similar to Jinx.

Passive - Voracity

VORACIOUS REDUCTION : Scoring a kill or assist will reduce the cooldown of Katarina's abilities⇒ Whenever an enemy champion dies within 3 seconds of Katarina dealing damage to them, her cooldowns will be reduced by 15 seconds

"As we called out in the foreword, DFG's removal didn't really impact some its frequent buyers quite in the ways we expected. While we were experimenting with some compensation, one thing from our data became very clear - Katarina is still a very strong champion.

We went back to brainstorming small ways to add power to Kat, but quickly found that buffing an already strong champ might not be the right course of action. This isn't to say she's exempt from further tweaks in the future, but forcing the issue on anything other than quality-of-life changes could very likely cause more problems than it would fix. "

v4.20Death Lotus has a higher cooldown and lower damage at ranks 1 and 2, but normalizes back its old values at rank 3.

"Katarina's been on a tear recently, rising to near-permanent-ban status across various regions. With shifts in the game landscape alongside various preseason changes (chief among them the lowered regeneration across the board), Katarina may very well be one of the strongest beneficiaries post 4.20. We're keeping an eye on her but, in the meantime, taking some of the Death out of Death Lotus to make sure Kat doesn't Shunpo her way to a top spot. "

R - Death Lotus

COOLDOWN : 60/52.5/45 seconds⇒ 90/60/45 seconds

MAGIC DAMAGE : 400/575/750⇒ 350/550/750

v3.12Summary: Death Lotus now deals more damage at later levels, and has been kicked up a notch overall with higher AP and AD ratios. We've increased the channel time of Death Lotus and removed its cast time delay, meaning Katarina's overall damage should remain roughly the same (if not higher) even if interrupted. The slightly reduced cooldown on Death Lotus means that at rank three it will take exactly three kills or assists to reset her ultimate.

Context: We wanted to re-focus more power and gameplay into Katarina's Death Lotus by increasing its high-threat damage. Ultimately, we think Katarina is more fun and unique when both she and her opponents are focused on executing or stopping Death Lotus. While the increased channel duration might seem like a nerf if interrupted early (since the ability deals damage over time), we removed the cast time delay to accommodate.

Death Lotus

No longer has a cast time delay before channeling (previously had a 0.25 second delay)

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